To Death
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: Cid is getting older, and Vincent isn't. Fourpart CidVin deathfic. Slash. Rating on the safe side for mature themes and language. COMPLETED.
1. Before Death

**To Death  
****Part One: Before Death  
**By Dreaming of Everything

**Author's Notes**: I'm beginning to think that I have a slight fixation on death…

Anyways. I love this pairing and wanted to write it. It was inspired by a poem that should feature in the next chapter.

This is planned out for four chapters, and features CHARACTER DEATH. This is an ANGST STORY, lacking happy endings of they type that I usually like and write.

The ending may still feature a note of hope, of happiness, maybe. It's still to be decided. Bear with me here, heavy-duty angst fans.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or anything relating to it. The poem "Sixtieth Birthday Dinner" was written by Michael Ryan and may or may not belong to him. The idea and writing is mine.

oOoOoOo

_My life with you has been beyond beyond  
__and there's nothing beyond it I'm seeking._

_I just don't want to leave it, and I am  
__with every silken bite of tiramisu.  
__I wouldn't mind being dead  
__if I could still be with you._

_--From"Sixtieth Birthday Dinner" by Michael Ryan_

oOoOoOo

Cid was getting older. That was natural; that was normal. It shouldn't be a problem, _wouldn't_ be a problem, if the situation had been normal. Cid was as down-to-earth as they came—Hell yeah he'd die, it's what happened, and if anyone made a fuss out of it he'd come back out of the Lifestream and swear at them until they stopped. He would die, and that was that.

But Vincent wasn't getting older. Vincent wasn't going to die. And he knew enough to know that Vincent was far too fucked up in the head to deal with his death—not on top of everything else, not considering what he'd been through, what he was—even if he _did_ swear him out from beyond the grave.

He was fine with dying, but not with how Vincent would react to him dying.

Vincent needed him. Yeah, he needed Vin, but not like the other depended on him. Needed him.

Vincent wasn't a case of 'once burned, twice shy;' it was more 'once burned, try to spend the rest of his life attempting to not-live, in complete isolation because he can't manage to kill himself.' Cid knew better than to imagine Vincent moving on after he had died—it was like expecting Cloud to stop pinning the world's woes on himself. It was like Yuffie giving away free materia.

He didn't want to leave Vincent, both because of what it would do to him, but also because of himself. He would miss him—maybe not miss everything, like how he would withdraw into himself every so often, disappearing momentarily, and worrying the shit out of everyone else, but yes, even that; he'd miss _everything_, because it was who Vincent was, just as much a part of him as everything else.

Hell. Cid didn't know what to do.

He was dying and there was nothing that was going to change that, and Vin wasn't dying, and there certainly wasn't anything to change that, and he didn't think anything was going to change Vincent himself, and that was the problem.

…And, as far as he knew, only Sephiroth had managed to scrape himself back out of the Lifestream, and then in the form of three fuck-all-psychotic silver-haired teenagers, and it involved all that Jenova shit. He really couldn't rely on being able to return every six months or so to convince Vincent to eat and wash and breath and move and talk to people.

They didn't know how long Vincent would live, and so they didn't know how long Vincent would spent curled in on himself, hiding and hurt and despairing because he had lost someone he loved, again, and it always happened like this, didn't it? And then there would be the guilt, because they were old friends, guilt and Vin, the kind that can never avoid each other and never really want to, subconsciously, though they do, on the surface, of course they do. Destructive, but familiar, the way things were.

Vincent Valentine. He had shut himself away because it was easier to forget, easier to just sleep and hurt and atone and apologize, for everything, but he had roused himself to save the world from what might have been his mistake. And while he was saving the world he had fallen into unexpected love—or stumbled, maybe, or been captured by—and had finally let the barriers he had maintained for the last fifty, sixty years drop, bewildered by Cid Highwind.

Cid hadn't liked Vincent to start out with, too introverted and self-aware and guilty, and not understanding that _living_ is atonement, that learning, that moving on, is how you best heal the mistakes you've made in the past, not refusing to learn from them like some sulky three-year-old who got in a fight and refuses to talk to, to look at, anyone else the rest of the afternoon.

But Vincent had been through a hell of a lot, and it was hard to blame him for what he had done. Hell, Cid would have been tempted to do the same, if he had gone through it. Vin had had an incredibly, fucking cruel life, even among their group's standards, the people who had defeated Sephiroth and saved the world—and they had all gone through the world's blender once or twice, coming out the worse for wear each time.

He had grown to respect him. Understand him, somewhat, though he resisted that as much as he could manage. He had grown to love him, with every fiber of his old, grumpy, obscenity-laden, nicotine-addicted, unredeemable self. Vincent had seen something in him, as well, and maybe it was just because they had gone up against Sephiroth and Meteor and the end of the world, because they certainly weren't the only couple to get together because of it. But still, they had found each other, or stumbled onto each other while struggling around blindly—and, in Cid's case, drunk—in the darkness of confusion that always seems to cloud over life.

Cid was going to miss him. Would miss spending time with him, would miss the sex—yes, he'd definitely miss that—might even miss snapping him out of his twice-yearly sulkfest. (Not that _he_ called it that…)

He didn't mind dying, but he didn't want to die. He wasn't ready, even though he was, because Vincent wasn't ready, and might never be. He had never felt this helpless.

And there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Most of all, he didn't want to leave him to himself.

_--end part one--_


	2. Up to Death

**To Death**

**Part Two: Up to Death**

**By Dreaming of Everything**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything related to Final Fantasy, VII or otherwise, or the poem 'Anti-Love Poem' by Grace Paley. I'm merely borrowing the former and shamelessly abusing the latter. My apologies to the aforementioned Grace Paley—it's a great poem, one I love, and it fitted this fic too much for me to resist.

**Author's Notes:** This pairing has taken over all of my higher brain functions. This is probably going to end up rather darker than I intended it to be, though… Again, apologies! Yes, I am aware that Vincent's reasoning is circular, but emotions tend to defy feelings that way anyways. See above for information about the poem.

(Should have had this up months ago, sorry…)

**I Hate QuickEdit Notes:** Ffdotnet has eaten my line breaks, so you get a string of O's. It's also eaten tabs/extra-large spaces in the poem, which I have been forced to replace with double hyphens (--). GAH.

You can read this as it's meant to be read at my livejournal, the link's in my profile. My handle there is Dreams (underscore) of (underscore) All, with spaces removed.

oOoOoOo

_Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love  
you turn your face away from that face  
whose lips might make you give up anger  
forget insult--steal sadness of not wanting  
to love--turn away then turn away--at breakfast  
in the evening don't lift your eyes from the paper  
to see that face in all its seriousness a  
sweetness of concentration--he holds his book  
in his hand--the hard-knuckled winter wood-  
scarred fingers--turn away--that's all you can  
do old as you are to save yourself from love_

—_Anti-Love Poem by Grace Paley_

oOoOoOo

Cid hadn't been young when they had met, and certainly wasn't now, and a hard life had aged him even more.

Vincent knew. He had his own body to compare him too—he was young as he had been when they had met, as he had been when he had sealed himself into his coffin, as he would be long after everyone they knew, and their children, were dead. He didn't know if he was truly immortal, or had merely had his life span extended so far that it seemed as if he was immortal, but the end result was the same: he would outlive Cid many times over, no matter how long Cid lived, or didn't live.

He wasn't sure what to think of that.

He had lost everyone he cared about, everyone he might have cared about. Lucrecia, the child she had carried that might have been his—Sephiroth, who he had failed as well; would things have turned out better if he had had a father? And so he had come as close as he could to killing himself, locking himself away because he was too monstrous to kill himself.

And then he had been dragged back to the real world, and had fallen in love again.

Cid Highwind was nothing that Lucrecia had been, not the cultured lady scientist with shy reserve and a sweet smile that appeared like crocus at the tail-end of winter. He was tough and crotchety and there was nothing sweet or innocent about him, and he smoked like a chimney and drank when he could and smirked. He was so down-to-earth he was verging on subterranean and he complained loudly whenever Vincent made the tea. He _fucked,_ and his kisses were harsh and demanding and needy.

And he loved Vincent back.

But things had changed, and he had been called a monster as a Turk but he was so much more of one now. And he was watching Cid get older and die, and _die_, leaving him all alone again and he was such a _selfish_ being, still unable to kill himself and rid the world of one more cold-blooded monster and unable to give up Cid, the person he had clung to because Cid loved him and he loved him and because he wasn't Lucrecia, loved him back as fiercely and stubbornly as he did everything else, swearing loudly and smoking continuously.

And right now, Vincent could hate Cid just for being who he is, for loving him, because that would make it hurt so much more when he died—because everybody died, every human, and he wouldn't because he was so painfully _not human_—and some days he'd give anything to not love him, anything except for everything they had done together, been through together, and the guilty salvation he had found in him.

Cid doesn't want to die any more than Vincent wants him to die, and he knows that part of that is because he doesn't want to hurt Vincent, and he hates _himself_ for that because he doesn't want to make this or anything harder for him. He doesn't want him to feel regret, like he always has, and he knows that that's stupid ("fuckin' _idiotic_," Cid called him once) but he can't help it. Cid's always been his polar opposite, and he doesn't want to change that.

He knows that Cid doesn't want him to return to his coffin and be as close to dead as he can be after he's died, and after Barret-Tifa-Marlene-Cait Sith-Denzel-Cloud-Yuffie-Nanaki have died, but he knows that he won't be able to do it, no matter how much Cid wants it, because _eternity_ is such a long time that it's incomprehensible, even when it's how long he will live. He's already lived long enough to have an idea, but it's still such a short time compared to what it could be. He doesn't want to disappoint Cid, doesn't want to deny him this, deny him anything, but he's never been perfect and all he can do is try, even though it's likely that he'll fail.

There's still no guarantee that he won't lose it entirely, though, already fragile sanity snapped by the inevitable pass of years, or even just Cid's death—so much worse than the last time—and his demons released to prey on the world as they will, until Cloud and the rest of the heroes that saved the world are forced to kill him, or some other group, inspired by a legend; maybe even his legend, warped until someone would want to emulate him.

There was a time when he would have considered releasing his demons to get himself killed, because he can't do the job himself and it's so _selfish_ of him to stay alive, considering what he is, and the chance that the demons would break free on their own, but he won't do that, not now, because there is too great a chance that someone would else would die, and he's done too much killing already. He owes his friends that much—

And he owes Cid more, who might not even call him an _irrational pig-headed bastard_ like he had when Vincent raced a train to save the life of Shera's granddaughter, the little out-of-control child she had asked them to baby-sit, if he tried. Cid would be—_disappointed_, and that might be worse than an eternity alone.

It will be an eternity, and it will be alone, so he wants to sleep it away. There will be no one who will trust him, with his appearance and his demeanor: glowing red eyes and pale skin, the golden claw, his stone face and the cold reserve he has with everyone, even the people he knows, even Cid, something he can't quite drop because of what he's been through and who he is and the insecurity of interacting with people, something he lost the knack for in-between becoming a corporate-sanctioned killer and a mad scientist's living experiment of a monster.

He found friends in the group that defeated Sephiroth and Meteor, but that had less to do with personality and more to do with circumstance, everyone cemented together with the weight and heat of the situation, everything they went through, everything they needed to do and did. Normal people shrunk from him in the streets, and even if someone did not _fear_ him, they still had no interest in knowing him even impersonally, and he wouldn't force his presence on anyone who did not want him. He could do that much.

oOoOoOo

Vincent wishes that something was _different_, that he could die or Cid wouldn't die or that living didn't hurt this way, because it's almost as bad as he can remember it being, losing someone you love like this, and Cid hasn't even died yet, just become older and weaker and closer and closer to death, and there's nothing Vincent can do, not with all his power and all his demons and all his selfishness.

--End—

**Author's Ending Notes:** There are two pieces left to do in this series, if all goes according to plan. Thank you to everyone who reviewed!


	3. At Death

**To Death**  
**Part Three: At Death  
By Dreaming of Everything  
**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own FFVII, or the characters or events portrayed therein. I also do not own the poem "Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing" which is by Linda Gregg and probably owned by her. My apologies to the latter.

**Author's Notes:** Part three of four. Not much else to say.

Please review!

oOoOoOo

_I remember all the different kinds of years.  
Angry, or brokenhearted, or afraid.  
--from "Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing" by Linda Gregg_

oOoOoOo

It was very clear out the day that Cid Highwind died. The sky seemed to be very far away, very distant, and the air was thin and chill; there were gusts of wind, close to the ground, but the slight wisps of clouds in the sky were motionless.

He died mid-morning, with Vincent at his side. A full lifetime's worth of friends waited outside; they had said what they needed to say earlier. Most of them could guess at what this was doing to Vincent.

"Don't forget," Cid had said to Vincent earlier.

"I love you," Vincent whispered, voice stricken.

"Yeah, I know. Me, too."

He fell silent, after that, not enough life left in him to speak.

Half an hour later, his heart had stopped.

oOoOoOo

Vincent had left the hospital room very quietly, carefully shutting the door after him. The little _thud_ it made as it was set back into its frame was startlingly loud in the quiet of the room.

He left without a word. A few people made to go after him, but Cloud shook his head, a silent warning. Tifa left through another door to get the doctor.

oOoOoOo

Vincent went home—it had taken years before he had begun thinking of the place as that. It had been a lifetime before then since he had had one, before he had been a Turk. He had been very different, back then. Almost unrecognizable. Cid had sworn him out three times for thanking him for letting him stay, and five times for not thinking of it as home, and once for 'acting too much like a goddamned guest.' It had taken him three years before he had realized that he had hurt Cid, with those assumptions and his attitude.

So Vincent went home, and the house was empty. Cid's presence was already starting to fade, even though he had only been in the hospital for the last two weeks. He wouldn't return. The house sounded hollow.

oOoOoOo

He curled up on the bed they had shared, and buried his head in the covers. He knows he looks ridiculous, his threatening, inhuman body splayed out like this, tattered cloak mingling with black hair against the blue sheets, his clawed arm laid palm-up for the sake of the fabric, a thoughtless habit after years living with the thing.

The room smells like Cid still: cigarettes and engine oil, yes, but also whatever it is that makes him _Cid_. He's always had a good sense of smell, but now it's inhumanly good. For once, he can't bring himself to hate it, for what it stands for. It's oddly comforting, the smell, and doesn't that say something about how twisted he is?

Vincent doesn't know how he's going to survive this. If he wants to—

—because he doesn't. He knows that. He wants nothing better than to die. He knows he won't. He wants to sleep away eternity, until even _his_ body begins to disintegrate, to wear down.

But for now, he scrunches himself into a tighter ball, face deceptively calm, eyes closed; if there had been anyone watching, they would have guessed that he was asleep.

Memories flit through his mind, from the beginning (when they had met, when he had been torn out of his not-quite-sleep) to now. To the end. Some part of him regrets ever waking up, putting himself through this again. Most of him wouldn't have traded the past years for anything, even a human death. Even Lucrecia.

oOoOoOo

_Don't forget_, Cid had said. Vincent knew what he meant.

The funeral party had come and left. They had been respectful of the unspoken facts of the matter. This was no ordinary funeral: Cid was the first to die since Aeris, the first to die of the ones who had survived the war. They were heroes, but they were mortal, and now they were going to die like anyone else, except for Vincent. Nobody but Cid had heard the full truth of Vincent's past, but they all knew enough to guess, and had some idea of what this was doing to him, so they were respectful even beyond the shock.

Even Yuffie was quieter than normal, but that may have been partly grief. Cid had been the grumpy, foul-mouthed uncle she had never had, her father figure for the duration of their attempts to save the world, no matter how violently both of them would deny it, and what they had all been through together had tied them all more tightly together than any of them really knew.

Aeris had been first, but they had all been expecting to die, then. What they were facing was impossible. The impossible had happened, and only one had died, and that was devastating, but they were still going to die, bar Vincent, and this was reminding them of it more forcefully than even their aging bodies had. You live with yourself, but it had been years since they had lived with the constant threat of death.

_Don't forget_.

Don't forget to live. Don't forget that that's the one thing Cid had asked of him. Don't forget that the world doesn't revolve around _you_, Vin, you selfish bastard.

Don't forget.

Vincent wouldn't forget. He just wasn't sure that he would listen to Cid, this last time. Whether he wanted to, or whether he was even capable of it.

For Cid's sake, he would have to. Nothing else was an option.

But for now, he would remember.


	4. After Death

**To Death**  
**Part Four: After Death  
** By Dreaming of Everything

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Final Fantasy VII, or the poem "On the Terrace," which was written by Landis Everson.

**Author's Notes:** Finally done! This is the last and final chapter of To Death; it will not be continued.

Thank you very much to my incredibly wonderful reviewers!

oOoOoOo

_The lonely breakfast table starts the day,  
an adjustment is made to understand  
why the other chair is empty. The morning  
beautiful and still to be, should woo me. Yet  
the appetite is not shared, lost somewhere in memory._

_How lucky the horizon is blue and needs  
no handwriting on its emptiness. I am  
written on thoroughly, a lost novel  
found again. I remember the predictable plot too late,  
realize the silly, sad urgency of moss._

_--"On the Terrace" by Landis Everson_

oOo

Vincent was surprised every day by the violent, painful love that ended up sweeping through him.

oOo

For Cid, he wouldn't try to die, even though he wanted to. He wanted to so very much—it was so much easier than _this_ was, than it would be a year, ten years, a hundred a thousand ten thousand years from now.

A day at a time. You can always manage things a day at a time. Cid had growled that at him once, saying Shera had told him to repeat it to him, looking embarrassed at saying anything so trite.

Vincent could live a day at a time. He could adjust to being so utterly, utterly alone.

He had done it before, and, now, he had memories of love.

He had failed before, though, he had failed at almost everything he had attempted. He had failed Lucrecia. Failed Cid. Would fail him again, now that he was dead.

oOo

Nobody had come to visit, although people had called. Vincent hadn't answered the phone; it was Cid's.

While he understood what they were trying to do—they were trying to give him space, let him mourn the way he needed to. It made sense. Logically, sensically, he appreciated it.

He was still afraid of being alone. Painfully afraid, and it wasn't just because of what he might become.

He cried every morning he woke up alone, and thought about getting a pet just to have another breathing body around. And then he thought about what he could do to an animal, accidentally with his claws or half-purposefully if he ever lost control of his demons or on purpose if his mind snapped. And he knew it might.

oOo

He cried every morning he woke up alone, and then pretended he hadn't, because what you don't recognize can't kill you. Acknowledging that he felt pain at all had to be enough.

It was stupid and irrational, but he hadn't stopped yet. And it would maybe be for the best if he ended up dead of something as cute, as trite, as swooningly romantic, as a broken heart.

oOo

He sat still for a week, doing nothing, fighting to keep from slipping into the deep sleep, into the coma, that he wanted so desperately to indulge himself in.

When he woke he threw out the bread because it had gone moldy, and then ate instant noodles because it was all that was left. Cid had eaten them before he had lived with Vincent, before Sephiroth, when he had come in dead-tired, bone-tired, and hungry. He had acquired a taste for them that Vincent had never shared, and so they usually had had some around.

His hands, his hand and his claw, curled nearly into a loose fist at the sheer visceral pain of memory.

oOo

He had found a bag of drowned puppies in the creek. He had never thought about whether or not materia would work on animals before.

He hadn't named the three survivors yet, but he found himself clinging to them. They were warm, the heat fierce against his skin.

They squirmed and smelled, and yapped at nothing in the corners, but it made the world feel less empty.

oOo

Everyone had been surprised to see the dogs when they had come trooping up to his door, bags of food in hand.

Vincent didn't know what they had been expecting—or did, but didn't want to think about it—but was pleased at their surprise, irrationally.

oOo

He missed Cid, missed him more fiercely than he had known he could. It was all that was keeping him from going entirely numb.

oOo

"I love you," he said, one day, and he knew he was talking Cid.

The admission broke something, and he sobbed on the floor like a little girl, more painfully joyous and fiercely mixed-up than he had ever been before.

oOo

He started a garden, and learned every type of butterfly that visited the fields around the house. He almost laughed, watching one of his puppies fight a rat almost as big as she was and come carting the carcass up the stairs, looking proud and noble and almost like Cloud. He cried and laughed when the Cid-puppy jumped on his sister's head, chewed on an ear and stole the dead animal from her.

The third one just watched them, panting in the heat, until Vincent urged her towards the others and she was jumbled up into their play.

Four mornings later, she turned up dead on the front porch. Vincent had killed every raccoon for three square miles within a week, piled the carcasses in the woods, and the neighbors whispered, no matter how far away they were from his land, and Tifa left a worried message saying she had stopped by but he had been out, and how was he doing? Were things doing alright?

oOo

Every morning he woke and hauled water from the stream to boil for tea—weaker than Cid's, and with milk—and then worked in the garden, and then lunch. And he wandered the woods in the afternoons, learned every nook and cranny and idiosyncrasy of the land, learned where the wild ginger grew, and where the pileated woodpeckers nested. And in the evenings he sat and remembered, then pretended he was tired and let himself sleep. He woke with the sun, and worried about what he'd do in winter, when it would rise later and later.

oOo

A neighbor left him a box of chicks, and he waited an entire afternoon before he felt strong enough to ask what you did to take care of poultry. His neighbors laughed, and he felt alive again, as embarrassment twitched within him.

The next day he went to the nearest town for lumber, chicken feed and groceries. He ate fresh fruit for lunch, and was content with simplicity.

oOo

He only called someone because he didn't know what else to do, but the entire group showed up on his front porch, grinning cheerfully—almost manically, if you were Yuffie.

When he explained that, Tifa said "Vincent, three months ago you wouldn't have thought of us at all."

The words shook him, but he simply accepted the new rounds of ammunition for his gun and gave everyone fresh eggs to take home. Aeris, Tifa and Cloud's daughter, named one dog Flower; their son, Aidan, named his Spike, and Yuffie named hers something unpronounceable in Wutain, though she said it translated to 'peach.'

"You've got a peach tree in your back yard, after all," she said, as if it explained something.

"You both picked _girly_ names," said Aidan, voice laden with all the disgust he could manage.

"I think they're all good names," said Tifa quickly, her tones the too-patient, over-practiced ones of a mother.

"Except mine's better," added Yuffie, grinning broadly.

oOo

Cloud was still alive, the mako extending his life, when Vincent first noticed that his hair was starting to gray, that he was getting the faint beginnings of wrinkles. That he was aging.

He will never have to face forever again, even a day at a time. He falls asleep happy, and ignores one of the dogs, Alleluia, creeping up onto the bed with him. Ordinarily, he wouldn't allow it.

oOo

He will die.

--**END**--


End file.
